Beware of the AA

Bad AA! For the thirtieth year in a row it has annoyed me, and this time I can take it no more so I have cancelled my Direct Debit; and I exult in the fact.
Renewing AA breakdown cover every year involved me ringing them up to remonstrate with them about the exorbitant price demanded, and every year till now they have backed down and reduced the price - so I stuck with the brutes. One year when I said "Oy. You want £115 from me, when you are offering the same cover openly in the newspapers for £24. Therefore I am phoning you to ask for a price cut. Every year, this happens. What have you to say on this matter? Why do you not just offer me a fair price to begin with, and save us both the trouble?", the operator told me that it's just their policy and that I must ring them every year to get the premium reduced. What a farce, and calculated to make all the AA's customers hate them. She agreed with me. Poor thing. It's not her fault.

Evidence of the AA's devious machinations.
Top: Join us for £39
Below: Valued special members pay £135.96

THIS year, when the fools sent me my membership renewal demand, by the same post they sent my son a junk mail shot offering him membership for £39 AND they promised to give him a £20 M&S voucher. For my continued membership they wanted £135.96 and nor were they presenting me with any vouchers. Naturally I rang them up, and this time I spoke to an insolent young puppy who refused to understand what I was on about and in essence told me I was lucky to get the cover offered for the sum in question. I got nowhere, and told him I would consider my position.
Consideration of my position involved ranting about the experience to my husband, who said "Yes, dear," as is his wont. Then I researched online and with difficulty obtained a comparative price for the cover I was being offered for £135.96. They make it difficult by "cleverly" (annoyingly, transparently trying to stop you bothering) altering what they call each bit of the cover - thus on their renewal sheet I had Roadside, Home Start (complimentary!) and Relay. On the website you have to read carefully to check which of the new names they are calling things relate to the same cover you have got on your renewal letter. You can see why most, sane, people give up and just renew regardless.
However the AA have got to get used to the idea that some of us are not "most, sane, people" and will not stand for it any longer.
On their website, I discovered that as a newly joining member the same level of cover can be yours for £125 and you will get a £30 fuel voucher thrown in. 
This is a confounded cheek specially as their renewal demand came with a most sycophantic nauseating letter in which they

i) declared their extreme gratitude to me for my years of membership and assure me that I am a) hugely appreciated, b) valued, and c) being given preferential treatment.

ii) proudly boasted that they will "show a 'no quibbles' approach to breakdown", - well I should bally well think so, what do they think we're paying them for?

iii) said they are giving me their most valuable benefits free. I couldn't care less about these "most valuable benefits" which I never asked for and don't want. They include
      the AA app - useless;
      2-day European breakdown cover - useless;
      Key insurance - of no interest to me whatsoever;
      "My Member Benefits" - sounds as though it could be lively but I bet it isn't;
      Accident Management - I'll manage my own accidents, ok;
      Legal Advice - don't need that thanks my husband's a solicitor;
      Vehicle Helpline -  what's that for?
The AA have failed to grasp the meaning of "free". These things I neither asked for nor want, I can only have because I must pay more. Therefore, I am paying for them.  They aren't free. I refer you, AA, to the Concise Oxford Dictionary.

iv) told me that the At Home cover which I am being "given free of charge" should really cost me £66.74; which is unfair since new members would get it for £36, and which means that the other bits of cover are even more more expensive than normal, unappreciated, unvalued customers are expected to pay. It simply does not make sense. 

I think the AA are lying. They do not value me and are not giving me a special good deal. They are hoping to rip me off due to my own laziness.

My position having been considered, I cancelled the Direct Debit and the AA can go to blazes. I bite my thumb at it. Their loss is the RAC's gain, till next year when the RAC will doubtless try the same game and I will be back to square one.



I have done the AA a re-draft of their sycophantic letter which they might like to use in future if they wish to avoid dishonesty which would stand them in poor stead on the Day of Judgement. Act now, AA, or you could end up writhing on a pitchfork for all eternity.

Redrafted letter : what the AA really mean.
Hi, Twit! 
Since you have proved what a sucker you are, by renewing your membership all these years, here is your inflated overpriced estimate. Pay, or get lost - we don't care. We aren't grateful, you aren't appreciated and your loyalty makes us scorn you. We don't give two hoots about you or your paltry contribution to our profits. 
Yours, the AA.

Affronted by Recipes

Against my better judgement, on Sunday (Easter Day) I  cooked 2 recipes that were in the paper and I find that my long-held animosity to newspaper chef recipes is ...  FULLY JUSTIFIED! Yes! My poor family.

Firstly there was a silly recipe for fancy roast lamb. Look. I have cooked perfectly good roast lamb many and many a time, with no need for marinading it first in a ridiculous mixture of roughly torn mint leaves, vinegar, brown sugar and sliced onion. As you can probably imagine, this was NEVER going to work. Slices of onion take about 5 mins to cook, whereas lamb leg takes some 30 mins per pound. Thus smoke and a vile smell of burning soon emanated from the oven and the onion had to be removed and discarded. 

Don't tell ME those bits of onion have been in the oven as long as the lamb. They aren't even burnt.
This was the picture accompanying the ridiculous Lamb recipe.

The resulting lamb was just as nice as usual, but there was no HINT of mint in the flavour and the addition of costly vinegars and sugar was a pure waste of money. The pan was also ruined due to burnt-on sugar studded with incinerated mint and onion. The recipe had advocated lining the pan with foil but that is a stupid idea as you can then not make the gravy in the roasting pan, so I left it out. I also added some garlic, thank goodness, because the newspaper chef had forgotten (I presume) to put it in. Also the fool had forgotten to dictate the oven temperature, which did not really matter as I would have ignored his advice anyway. I was able to manipulate the heat as I pleased. "Do till Done" is the best way of cooking and is far more reliable than obeying some bossy idiot who has not cooked such a dish and is only trying to submit copy in order to get paid. Really the cookery pages in the Times are a wicked waste of paper and they get away with it most of the time because no-one in their right mind attempts these recipes.

Having suffered the repeated sounding of the fire alarm siren while the lamb was being cooked the family had more to assail them when I followed the lamb with a "Luscious Lemon Pudding" which far from being "a cross between a soufflé and sponge with a heavenly texture and gooey succulent base, intensely lemony, light and rich, good hot or cold, does not require cream with it" as claimed by the Times, was in fact a lump of burnt-topped, heavy, dry, dull-flavoured nasty cake which no-one wanted any of. And who can blame them? It was not for want of effort either. This recipe demanded that you 'microplane-zest 2 lemons or remove the zest in paper-thin sheets and chop small'. Not being in possession of a microplane-zester (or knowing what one is actually) I just scraped the lemon on the fine grater. It then made you separate 3 eggs and beat the yolks and the whites separately. Now look here, Times, I don't do THAT lightly I can tell you.  I'm a busy woman, with hymns to play and dishes to cover.*  The cost of beating yolks and whites separately is extremely high in human suffering, washing up, valuable drinking time, and various other amenities. The only recipe I am willing to beat yolks and whites separately for is Aunty Pat's Lemon Whip (trustworthy recipe with consistently excellent results). Finally, it was recommended that when cooked it should be turned out of the dish and served up side down. Remember that the recipe writer had claimed that this was a soufflé type of thing. She had either forgotten that by the time she got to the end of writing the recipe, or she does not understand what a soufflé  is or how it works. 

Certainly they are a forgetful lot the cookery writers. The lamb one, as mentioned, forgot to tell us what temp the oven should be. Often they list something in the ingredients which then never turns up in the method, or, in the method they suddenly say 'Stir in the beans' leaving you going 'Eh? What beans? How many? What sort?' etc. and proving thereby that the recipe has not been read through let alone tried out.  Also they are profligate and impractical, making you use about 30 different bowls and utensils etc. where one would do, and telling you to do pointless, impossible things which don't work. It is highly irresponsible, specially when people are so short of money and time.

The lemon recipe here described had the cheek to write at the end, "Make this and send a photo of the finished dish to food@thetimes.com". What a nerve! I will send them a picture of my fiasco if they like, but they won't thank me for it. Still, they ought to be confronted with the consequences of their instructions.

Fiasco, or Luscious Lemon Pudding? I think we all know the answer to that.

Menu for next Easter will be the usual Lamb Done till Done, and Aunty Pat's Lemon Whip. I can not think what got into me this year. 



*  reference to superhero 'Cling Film Arm'. Cling Film Arm has one of his forelimbs replaced surgically with a roll of cling film and leaps into kitchens going "Stand back, Ladies! I've work to do - dishes to cover."

Estate Agents and their Shortcomings

We have just sold our house and bought another one. It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of Estate Agents as we were forced to do. Our ones were called F*x and Sons. I leave you to insert the vowel of your choice but I can confirm it was not A, E or I.

We only used them because they were selling the house we wanted to buy, and we thought the lure of 2 sales commissions would motivate them to action. What fools we were. F*x and Sons stayed in their office with their feet on the desks, filing their nails throughout the whole process and stirring themselves only at the last minute, to serve us a huge bill with more alacrity than they had shown during the whole rest of the proceedings.

I made particular enemies of 2 of their operatives, known to us as 'Mrs Assertive' and 'Supercilious Man'.

We should have known from the start that there would be trouble because it took three phone calls from us before they arranged to show us round the house we wanted - and when they did they did not bring the keys for the outbuilding which I particularly wanted to see, and thought I was a nuisance for wanting to do so. Mrs Assertive offered to make another appointment so that we COULD see the outbuilding, but made it clear I was being unreasonable. No matter that it had been an utter pain organising for our family to be available to look round the house at the time arranged and I had no wish to do it all again.

They lied and dissembled repeatedly, made us show our prospective purchasers round, never rang back when they said they would, always claimed to have been discussing our sale/purchase that very morning, various people were always "out of the office" and would be back "early next week" (they never were) and essential repair works which we demanded be done on pain of our backing out of the purchase, were always "in hand" but never got done. 
Furthermore the particulars they wrote for our house were of very low quality and negligible literary merit so that we were ashamed to distribute them. I wrote one of my own which was far better than theirs, and I am not even being paid for my pains.
In their description of the house we were buying, they called the kitchen "a real 'hub of home'". This is a wicked thing to do and has resulted in our family saying such remarks as "I've left the wine in the Hub of Home." We can't help it. Once heard (read) one can not forget something like that; and there is a constant danger that the neighbours might hear us. Imagine if your new neighbours were overheard referring to something as 'hub of home' - you'd be horrified and you wouldn't yet know them well enough to realise that they were exercising sarcasm at maximum setting. Assertive Lady is suspected of being the perpetrator of the phrase.

We were made fun of for not wishing to move into a house with an active flood from some of the plumbing. They told total fibs to our purchasers and sent round people who particularly wanted a house with a garden for their dog to cavort in (we hadn't got one) and told them we used to have a dog, which we had not, because the property was not suitable for dog husbandry.

A selection of dogs none of which, sadly,
live or have ever lived at our old house.

Further dogs that have not lived at our house. I'm sorry but there it is.

I planned to do some revenge when their bill was to come in; I was going to say we'd been talking about it that very morning, and that my husband was away until early next week and I would get him to phone them when he got back, to tell them the payment of the bill was in hand and in the post, to make fun of them for wanting to be paid what they were entitled to, and to inefficiently date the cheque Jan 2015 (a perfectly understandable mistake as it was the beginning of Jan 2016) and to make it payable to Mrs Assertive and Supercilious Man. In the event however, Supercilious Man was so unpleasant when we went in to pick up some more keys that had come to light, that I decided I wanted nothing further to do with him or any of F*x's hateful Sons, and therefore sent off the enormous, utterly unjustified cheque to his head office without comment. I had thought of including a covering letter remarking how DELIGHTED I was to be ending my dealings with them but I could well imagine them using  ' "Delighted" - Mrs M Carroll' in their testimonials, so I didn't. Also as mentioned, the less you have to do with people of this sort, the better.

We are now receiving by every post, brochures and so on from firms of whom we have never heard, much less informed of our activities, congratulating us on our move and offering various services for which we have no desire. We must assume that the Sons of F*x have been selling our details to the open market.

We must throw off the yoke of these appalling parasites. Every bad thing you have heard about Estate Agents is true. Should you wish to sell your house do it on one of those online selling sites. Together we can expunge Estate Agents from every High Street in the land, and the world will be for ever in our debt.

Fatuous email from the Royal Mint

The Royal Mint  -  Fotherington-Thomas at the helm.

The Royal Mint has been trumpeting a special offer where you can apply to get one of 2015 free sixpenny bits, which they are giving away in order (they claim) to revive the defunct tradition of making your Xmas cake and pudding on Stir Up Sunday which is the Sunday before Advent, i.e. this Sunday 22nd November this year. Actually they are doing it in order to get hold of various greedy people's contact details so that they can then plague them with emails, spam, junk mail and phone calls trying to persuade them to buy some of their over-priced coins for the rest of all eternity, and the list of details will also be sold on to other loser companies to do the same with their own useless products. These lists change hands for considerable sums so the price of 2015 sixpenny bits is a negligible outlay; why even the face value (which you would not get) is only £50 7s 6d. As you can see in the email they sent me (see below) the ploy has been successful with almost 25,000 fools applying. One of whom was me. If you too were one, make sure you locate the microscopic "unsubscribe" button at the bottom of their email, and click on it.
I applied because 1) I want a free sixpence. 2) I deserve one, because I already uphold the tradition of Stir Up Sunday. My mother always made her Xmas cake on Stir Up Sunday and I do as well because I have turned into my mother.

What I was hoping for :

Delightful coin of the realm

What I got :

Dear Sir/Madam

Thank you for your application for the FREE Stir-Up Sunday sixpence.  Unfortunately, on this occasion, you weren’t one of our lucky 2,015 applicants. We had an overwhelming response to the promotion that saw almost 25,000 people apply to receive one of the 2,015 silver sixpences.

But please don’t let that deter you from joining in the Stir-Up Sunday fun. If you don’t have a sixpence handy, why not try another coin?

Don’t forget to share your Stir-Up Sunday pictures on social media this Sunday using #stirupsunday and our username @royalmintuk. You will find The Royal Mint on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We will be reposting, retweeting and sharing our favourite pictures and there will be prizes!

PLEASE READ: Obviously, due to size, putting a coin in a pudding might cause a risk of choking. And while we might all remember stirring a 2p or 20p piece in our puddings as children, modern knowledge of health and safety might change our thinking towards it, particularly if the coins aren’t pure silver, or have not been sterilised. As such, we recommend that you do not bake your coin into the pudding or when reheating. Instead, we recommend that coins should be placed into the pudding just prior to serving, with the slices then dished out at random to give someone the chance to find it. Alternatively, simply pop the sixpence in its pouch and hide it under one of the table settings before everyone sits down to dinner.

If you do add anything like coins or charms to your pudding, sterilise them first in boiling water. Make sure you choose items large enough to be noticed, or wrap them tightly in a ball of tin foil, and tell everyone to look out for them. This serves two purposes: it will increase the fun, and it counts as a word to the wise, so that Christmas dinner doesn't close with people accidentally swallowing the coin or breaking teeth!

Season’s greetings!

The Royal Mint


        

Unsubscribe button,
magnified X 1,000,000,000 by me,
so that you can see it.
In reality not visible to the naked eye.
 

 

They can't even be bothered to address me correctly. Sir Forwardslash Madam does not appear in any Debrett's I have ever perused.
Then they patronisingly tell me what a wonderful triumph their offer was, and suggest since I didn't win, "Why not try another coin?". Don't you "Why not... " me, sir. I bite my thumb at you. I bite my thumb at your infantile use of exclamation marks. I am a grown woman, not a two year old. I will NOT be taking, let alone sharing, any Stir Up Sunday pictures, neither will I alter my habits one iota in order to pander to your ridiculous blandishments. I will not sterilise any coins and I will certainly not "pop" any money of what ever denomination in to the cake just prior to serving as recommended by a bunch of utter weeds and killjoys. I do not pop things. I will not "pop" the stupid coin under the table mat either. How thick ARE these people you think I will be serving? It would not fool my lot for a PICOSECOND and then there would be a fight. "Oy Mum Henry's got a sixpence, it's mine, I left it on the table this morning," etc.
If I wrapped a coin in a ball of tin foil I would be removed forthwith into padded custody which is the place of choice for detaining persons of the Carroll name who have gone completely off their heads. Why the devil finding a screwed up ball of silver foil in your food would "increase the fun" I do not know and I think their belief that this is the case indicates that they are long overdue for some serious army training and no mercy shown.
Also I dispute their claim that Stir Up Sunday is fun. My heart always sinks when I hear the collect as it means I have WORK to do.

In conclusion : What sort of gluten-free non-dairy quiche eaters do they think we are? Looking back at historical statistics do we see a spate of deaths by choking or poison every Christmas? No. No one has EVER been killed by a sixpence piece. I checked.
The 6d is innocent. Calm yourselves, Royal Mint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quinoa - The Truth

There is a very fine fake quinoa cooking recipe (right) but it swears a lot. I try not to swear in these posts because of my mother who always wanted me not to swear; however these instructions nicely express what all right-thinking people feel about quinoa so I have written out the same sentiments but without the swearing.

 Quinoa Instructions 

·          - Prior to commencing cookery remember to tie your hair and beard into ponytails. Put on some pretentious music in the background, ensuring that it is loud enough for the neighbours to hear it so they will know how clever and intellectual you are. Suggested tracks: whale song, Indian chanting, ‘World music’. Avoid anything with a good tune or pleasant harmonisations.

-  This stupid stuff has to be RINSED before you can even use it. Rinse 1 part quinoa. You must do this with cold water drawn from the Yangtze River - Do not rinse it with tap water. Make sure people see you.

- Measure out 5 parts water, or stock. Measure it with your de Longhi measuring jug as used by the brigade de cuisine from Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons or similar. If using stock this must be made from rare-breed chicken carcases sourced from an artisanal producer at the Farmers’ Market on Notting Hill High Street, and cooked on a hob costing £10,000 or above.

- Bring it to the boil in a multi-million pound Le Creuset saucier pan and then tip in the rinsed quinoa.

- Simmer for 20 minutes. This gives you time to read a sentence of Proust or carry out some kharmic mindfulness or other sophisticated activity.

- Then remove the pan from the heat and let it stand for another 10 minutes during which period you can go out to fetch the infant Tarquin from his balalaika lesson.

- Fluff up the grains with your special Fortnum & Mason Quinoa-comb, and serve with some unpalatable, difficult to procure accompaniments which show how on-trend you are.

- Tweet about it so your public knows what refined and urbane eating habits you employ. Hashtag picture of your plate.

- Do not say grace. People like you despise Christians.

- Eat, meanwhile preening yourself because you are a complete TURKEY. Share your meal with other poseurs of your acquaintance. If possible speak French at table. 
Do not reflect that, if you weren't such a Superior Being as you are, you could be enjoying a load of tasty chips, some BACON or a Mars Bar. YOU have chosen the austere, the worthy, the wholesome path. Congratulations.

Recipes of The Times

Media Cookery Writers are silly.

Daily they demand that you make meals with ingredients you have never heard of and do not know what they i) look like, ii) taste of, iii) are, or iv) may be sourced from. Doubtless these are all REALLY expensive - of that at least you may be sure. Also cookery writers think you have nothing else to do and can therefore spend valuable drinking time shelling micro-peas / spreading pesto onto individual cashew nuts / assembling intricate insalate out of tiny fronds of rocket (which they call arugula, because that's more exclusive).

Ingredients. All your ingredients have to be obscure if you are a media cook. Here are some of the items they have called for in recent months:

Dukkah. Used as a dusting on chicken, as far as I can make out.

Freekeh. If your freekeh is cracked, you can get away with simmering it for a mere 15 minutes. Uncracked freekeh takes much longer, as does farro. Even so, you must buy your farro UNCOOKED : Never buy cooked farro or freekeh: come on, what sort of a lightweight are you? However, I remain none the wiser as to what these things are for, regardless of whether they are cracked, cooked or in any other form.

Buddha's Hand. A kind of citrus fruit which has no juice or pulp - just pith and skin. Sounds useful, doesn't it? I have no idea what desperate straits one might need to be in, to use any Buddha's hand.

Maftoul. Dear Lord! For once the cookery writer, realising that no-one would know what maftoul is, helpfully revealed that it is "similar to Sardinian fregola (Sardinian, mind. Not any old fregola) and is made of toasted semolina dough." Great. Thanks, Cookery Writer. I might have bought non-Sardinian fregola if you hadn't mentioned it. Toasted semolina dough of course is every housewife's fallback, isn't it. ('No, it isn't actually. We have never encountered it,' say the housewives)

Za’atar "Written history lacks an early definitive reference to za'atar as a spice mixture, though unidentified terms in the Yale Babylonian Collection may be references to spice blends," says Wikipedia, helpfully.

Some ingredients are Superfoods which are a deluded idea and quite wrong. Celebrities often promote these sort of crackpot manias. Superfoods are supposed to do all manner of miraculous cures if you eat them instead of proper food; but they do not. Scientists have proved it. The celebrities want you to eat prickly cactus juice, Maca powder (ground-up Peruvian radishes) and chaga fungus as these will rebalance your pH, stabilise your BP, reduce depression and PTSD, make your skin lovely and other wild and unsubstantiated claims eg. chaga fungus will cause you to be immortal, says Katy Perry, who ever she is. We have only just finished being told we must have drinks made out of blenderised kale, and THAT was bad enough. And now they say that the blendered kale was in vain. Look, health freaks, the radish powder will soon turn out to be just as useless, mark my words.

How do you even pronounce half these stupid ingredients? I mean "chorizo" FPS (for Pity's sake) is that Cheritzoh, or Korr-eye-zo, or chorrizzoh or korrizzo or WHAT? quinoa? za'atar? Come ON people. Actually I have been told many times, how to pronounce chorizo but I can never remember. It is information which the human brain can not be bothered to retain.

Even ordinary things like tomatoes are required to be rare-breed or of fanciful provenance.

This leads to preposterous announcements such as :

"Tomatoes must be heritage, and mozzarella must be buffalo." I have no idea what that means. The most desirable tomatoes are in fact heirloom but these are virtually unobtainable. Heirloom (adj.) means so scarce and expensive that they have to be inherited rather than purchased. 

"Note: if your limes are not Goan you had better leave them out altogether."

"It is imperative that any tuna be yellow-fin and longline-caught" - or you might as well forget it.

"Hand-roll the sushi" if you do not wish to suffer instant social death.

The things they expect you to do to figs are nobody's business. Really in this country if you get a decent fig you are so happy you would not dream of doing anything to it. You just eat it, and be jolly grateful. You do not fashion it at considerable length into Sweet Spiced Freekeh with Grilled Figs. Have SOME sense.

Media cooks inhabit a different gastronomic planet from normal people. Normal people need to eat cheaply and quickly without infringing on their other activities unnecessarily. Media cooks sit around thinking up ridiculous ideas and making a lot of work for their underlings and any readers foolish enough to try one of their recipes. Here are some examples:

Hangover Hash. 

Cooking time 2 hours. The writer has failed to grasp the fundamental fact about hangovers which is That They Are An EMERGENCY. One cannot simply wait TWO HOURS for help. Also the sight of a raw egg (see picture) is not beneficial.
Persons suffering from a hangover would NOT appreciate this revolting looking dish being presented to them 2 hours after their suffering began. Plenty of ibuprofen, some orange juice and a bacon sandwich, taken with a glass of claret, prescribes Dr Mel, and dose to be taken STAT immediately, not in 2 hours' time.

Friday Night Pizza. 

All you need to know about this is that the recipe begins "Make the cauliflower base". Yes! Can you imagine how nasty a pizza with a base made out of cauliflower must be? UGH. If you read further (not recommended) you will see that it also contains chia seeds, whatever they may be, and almond meal; and the finished pizza is served sprinkled with nutritional yeast flakes. Absolute purgatory.

Fresh Blueberry Fudge. 

When you peruse the recipe, you will realise this is definitely not fudge. Fudge is made of sugar, butter and milk and has to be boiled to Fudge Point. Not "place cashews in a bowl" or do anything with "rice malt syrup" as is suggested here. Good Lord. Discard.






Poached Quince and Winter Fruit in Spiced Wine. 
I hardly know where to start in describing what is wrong with this recipe. You must acquire "2 Quince". (Not quinces.) How ridiculous. The plural of quince is quinces and to suggest otherwise is to be an affected poser. I'd be jolly surprised if a quartered quince cooked in 29 mins' poaching as claimed here. What the devil kind of quinces were they using? You add some Cox's apples and some ripe pears for the last 4 minutes of poaching. This chef has never cooked Cox's apples before has he? You can tell. Then you put in some blackberries and prunes. You serve this concoction ice cold with some red wine sorbet. It sounds most unsuitable for a chilly winter evening when everyone would much rather have blackberry and apple crumble which would have been a far better use of the ingredients. N.B. Quinces and blackberries are not ripe both at the same time so this recipe was not going to work anyway. Media cooks never have a clue about what is ripe at any particular season so they are always writing recipes that are completely impossible to do.

Here is a recipe from my own recipe book. When this was invented there was MUCH derision I can tell you. My husband's contribution to world nutrition. I think it is well within the spirit of Media Cookery.

Lunatics' Beetroot.

Method:

Mix together beetroot, hardboiled egg and tomatoes (chopped). Place in a teapot. (Don't ask.)

Fry bread.

Spread the mixture from the teapot over the fried bread.

Traditionally served in the Lunatic Asylums of Gothenburg when the full moon is at perigee. 

Variations suggested by jeering members of the family : throw some muesli and plenty of salt over the dish. Aniseed balls may also be added, and shavings of hazelnut.

Actually Lunatics' Beetroot is quite good, as long as you don't add any of those toppings. Better than Friday Night Pizza anyway.

The National Trust

The National Trust annoy me with their high-handed treatment of US - us who are their owners, if they could just bear that in mind. They charge fortunes for entry and begrudge letting you in even then; they keep wanting to sell off land that's been given to them to defend and preserve, because they can't cope on the BILLIONS of pounds they have at their disposal; and they repeatedly let places burn down due to criminal levels of carelessness, thereby depriving the nation of multiple priceless irreplaceable assets that they had been charged with looking after. They are arrogant, which they have no business to be because they are shoddy. 

A visit to Dunster Castle revealed some prime examples indicating the shocking state of the National Trust. First we were accosted by a hostile old lady who demanded to see our tickets, as though we were sneaking in without paying - but we were only going in to the GROUNDS, and why should we pay for that? My husband has a Life Membership Card anyway and that entitles him and guest to get in free which the old lady did not believe and he had to speak quite sternly to her and tell her she must look it up on the internet. It is as well to maintain an air of authority on these occasions. Do not be cowed by the minions. I was only sorry he did not claim to be Goat Luttrell (previous owner of D Castle) and that he would buy this place and install a jukebox.

We went on, and were soon stopped by another fierce unwelcoming harridan at another machine gun post, demanding to see our tickets again. We showed the trout, and told her we'd already been checked. She retorted that there are "hundreds of places where they (sic) can get in" which nicely demonstrated that the National Trust's corporate hostility to the people they are supposed to serve is both strong and diligent.

National Trust Border Guards in action. 

Victim of difficult new stairs

The next annoying thing was that they have got a long stairway of wrongly-sized steps incompatible with legs of normal human length. The steps were recently installed at great expense, and who ever designed them has obviously never walked on stairs in his life. Presumably it was someone on the committee's brother/nephew/godchild; it definitely was not any graduate of the Royal College of Staircase Design, or even any pupil in their Kindergarten.

Then there was a silly map pointing the wrong way. North was indicated towards due West. Fools. And it takes them a whole year to put in a few herbaceous perennials. Work did not seem to be progressing very successfully either if I may say so. It was a proper mess, such as one can see in many a garden without paying entry fees of £7.50 per person.

There were haughty 'Private' notices everywhere, forbidding the nasty unwanted visitors to have access to any of the most interesting-looking places. Really who do these people think they are? They would do well to remember that these places are the property of the nation, i.e. the general public, whom they clearly much despise. 

We declined to take tea as it was being served in polystyrene cups which are most disagreeable to drink out of. At the prices on show one would expect Ming at the least.

There were some quite nice flowers out in the gardens, I will give it that, and charming views, but you can get these anywhere.

They had let in some pretty girls, which pleased all the men but annoyed me. Here they are (right). Out you go, Girls.

There were tractors, strimmers and chainsaws loudly at work all over the place which detracted from everyone's enjoyment so the fee for entry ought to have been waived anyway.

Also they are idiotically resurfacing the car park. Why they need to do it at all I can not imagine, and certainly not in the middle of the busy season. Again, "Fools". The car park was fine before, and what they really needed to do was sort out the utterly STUPID road in and out of the car park which is long and single lane but serves for both coming in and going out. Given that the majority of National Trust visitors are aged approx. 90 and suffer from degenerative neck problems so they can't reverse this road is completely useless for the purpose.

On our way out that Miss Blennerhasset woman who had first tried to keep us out bestowed upon me a final vindictive glare.

The last view we had of Dunster was this - an officious National Trust official raking in the cash from the extortionate parking fees. 

Humourless, ungenerous and grasping, I'd say of the whole Dunster ethos. Not a rewarding experience for the visitor.